A third of the film’s budget went to special effects and computer-generated imagery in 2,400 scenes throughout the movie’s 141-minute running time. Costumes by an Oscar-winning costume designer cost 30 million yuan, while fees for the cast took up 75 million yuan.

Despite the spectacular vista, the convoluted plot failed, spurring even Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of Global Times, a nationalist tabloid that’s usually quick in celebrating Chinese achievements, to pan the movie.

“It could not even tell a proper story,” Hu wrote on his Weibo blog site. “The producers just need to knock their heads against the wall” and reflect on what they’ve done, he wrote. “Millions of yuan just got wasted.”

The flop by China’s most expensive movie is a reminder that cinema patrons in the US$8.2 billion box office market are rapidly changing their tastes, and that Hollywood stardust may be coming off from multimillion dollar productions and blockbuster epics